In order to access wide area networks such as the Internet, customers at home and commercial premises use a broadband network between the customer premises and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as the BT Total Broadband service offered by British Telecommunications plc.
Typically, the customer premises is connected to the ISP equipment via a copper line, a combination of copper and optical fiber lines or optical fiber lines. Examples of such arrangements include Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) (collectively referred to as xDSL), Fiber-to-the Cabinet (FTTC), Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) and Data over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS).
The broadband connection links the customer to services available on wide area networks such as the Internet thereafter to a wide range of remotely located application servers and services.
In the case of a DSL broadband network, the ISP has equipment located at an exchange building servicing multiple premises, and data from the wide area network is routed to the customer via a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) or mini DSLAM.
At the user premises, a modem converts the broadband/DSL signal into a home network format such as Ethernet and a router then provides routing capability so that multiple home network devices such as computers, laptops, tablets and phones can share the bandwidth of the connection.
To accommodate device mobility, a wireless access point distributes the Ethernet packets over an air interface, typically in accordance with the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols. These are commonly referred to as Wi-Fi. At present the latest standard is 802.11ac while 802.11n, 802.11g and 802.11b are still common. Using Wi-Fi, wireless devices can send data to and receive data from local and remote services via the access point.
Typically the modem, router and wireless access point functions are integrated into the same physical unit. Examples are the BT Home Hub 4 which combines an ADSL modem, router and 802.11n access point, and the BT Home Hub 5 which combines a VDSL modem, router and 802.11ac access point. These combined devices will now be referred to as Hubs.
Due to the regulation of radio spectrum across the World, Wi-Fi only operates within the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum bands. Being an air interface, the performance of Wi-Fi is susceptible to external influence. There are a number of factors which can influence the performance of the link between a wireless device and the wireless access point part of a hub:                Relative Location: The quality of the signal link deteriorates as the distance between the devices increases;        Obstructions: The presence of objects in the path between the device and the access point also deteriorate the signal link. The composition of the object also has an effect. Metals reflect the radio waves while brick and concrete absorb the radio waves;        Shared channel: The number of channels available for transmission is limited. In 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi there are typically only 13 channels and of those only 3 are non-overlapping. Therefore access points typically choose to broadcast on channels 1, 6 and 11. Where two or more access points have their wireless networks on the same channel, in accordance with the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA-CA) protocol, if a device is transmitting, no other device can transmit. Any device wishing to transmit must wait for the currently transmitting device to finish before it attempts to gain the channel. If a device is waiting a long period of time to transmit due to heavy channel usage, performance suffers. Therefore in areas with a dense population of Wi-Fi access points is present, the system performance will deteriorate;        Adjacent channel: The RF channels used in Wi-Fi are not sufficiently spaced so that adjacent channels are completely isolated from each other. The energy of transmissions in a particular channel is also present in the adjacent 3 channels on either side of the channel. Therefore to avoid cross talk it is recommended to use channels 1, 6 and 11 to provide sufficient isolation. However, a device on a particular channel wishing to transmit, may be prevented from doing so due to a device operating on an adjacent channel due to the behavior of the CSMA-CA protocol. Similarly when the device is transmitting, it will prevent devices on adjacent channels from transmitting. Therefore this behavior results in congestion;        Other wireless protocols: The radio frequencies used by Wi-Fi devices, especially the 2.4 GHz bands, are not exclusively used by Wi-Fi. Other wireless protocol devices such as Bluetooth and wireless microphones also operate in these bands. These devices can cause disruption to multiple Wi-Fi devices in the form of interference since they do not comply with the CSMA-CA protocols; and        Out of band—Just as the energy from an adjacent Wi-Fi channel transmission can leak into a neighboring channel, devices operating in a different but adjacent part of the radio frequency spectrum can cause interference. Examples are LTE transmissions in the 2.6 GHz spectrum.        
There are therefore two main physical links in the communication path between a user device and the ISP equipment which can affect the user's quality of experience with the ISP. Namely, the DSL link from the DSLAM to the customer modem, and the Wi-Fi link between the user's devices and the access point.
A bottleneck at either location will negatively affect the user's experience. However, typically, when a user experiences poor performance, the assumption is that the DSL link is the problem and a complaint is made to the ISP or access provider.
While the DSL link is also susceptible to performance problems and interference, those are beyond the scope of this disclosure. The present disclosure relates to the increasing likelihood of problems occurring on the air interface due to both contention as the number and density of wireless access points increases as well as the potential for interference from a variety of sources.